Two years after ending a friendship w a MM, still feel immense pain

[hotsocks]

I had a beautiful 8 year friendship with a MM. Over time my feelings grew into something more than platonic. It got to a point that I could no longer pretend I didn't love him, so I ended our friendship over text one day when he wanted to meet for lunch. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I just couldn't feel all the pain and longing anymore. I needed to take a breath. He understood and agreed it was the best path forward.

 

We never crossed any physical boundaries. Our friendship was based on mutual interests and similar personalities...and yet I miss him like a great long lost love. I've focused on myself over the last two years. I've built a varied group of friends, gotten a great job, bought a house and dated quite a bit. I've mourned. I've written unsent letters, imagined all of his negative traits, and tried to fill the space of his absence.

 

Still I feel a deep aching in my heart over the loss of this friendship. I find myself trying to run into him in the old places we used to go, imagining special moments we had over and over again. Fantasizing about a time in the future where we might reunite.

 

How can I make the pain stop finally? I keep trying to imagine he's dead and that just hurts even more.

[Soak]

Well, he was married when the two of you were 'friends' and still let the union go on, probably KNOWING how you felt about him, and getting the ego-boost from another woman (you), all the while, he had a wife at home.

 

And now, he is probably doing it to somebody else.

 

Do you really think a person like this is worth pining over?

[mark clemson]

It sounds like it could be limerence. You should probably research this, e.g. on Wikipedia. It should be fading but hasn't. You need to stop re-triggering it; suggest you go for IC.

 

One thing that should help will be to stop re-triggering by doing anything that "extends hope" of being with him/seeing him again. In a way you're being your own worst enemy here. Concede that it's over and stop doing anything to do with him or the possibility of seeing him. Recognize that your future is NOT with him and move only towards that.

[Soak]

It sounds like it could be limerence

 

Hmph.. limerence, what a scurge! Knowing that you have limerence doesn't make it any easier to solve. It's still like a break up, but worse sometimes. The mind plays tricks.

 

Try not to romanticise this guy.

[mark clemson]

Correct. True limerence is involuntary and must be waited out while your brain adapts. 2 years is a long time, though particularly if there's no contact. Some people apparently take longer.